1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sports shoe for golfers. Golf shoes have a more or less profiled plastic sole which, with a view to improving their grip and increasing the golfer's stability, are provided with projecting ground-engaging elements, especially spikes, that penetrate more or less deeply into the turf or into the ground. Spikes may consist of steel, or a ceramic material, and are also available as so-called soft spikes or plastic spikes. Soft spikes are prescribed on some golf courses because they are said to cause less damage to the golf course than spikes made from steel or a ceramic material. Spikes may either be firmly anchored in the sole, or may be exchangeable. In the later case it is common practice to provide the sole with threaded holes, for example to embed metallic threaded bushes in the sole, into which spikes with a matching external thread can be screwed.
2. Description of Related Art
When driving the ball, especially when teeing-off, the player's trunk and waist should ideally rotate about a stationary axis which should coincide with the player's spinal column. The player should swing the golf club in upward direction, then back and in downward direction, forwards and through the position of the ball, and should finally continue the swinging movement in the direction of the envisaged target, while rotating his trunk and waist, and terminate the movement in a posture in which his breast and his pelvis are turned in the direction in which the golf ball flies. At the end of the swinging movement, the player's posture should be such that he looks in the direction of his target, with his breast and pelvis facing the target, while his left foot—if he is a right-hander—remains standing in its original direction, crosswise to the finishing line, but is clearly bent over in the direction of the target, so that the outer edge of the user's left foot points toward the ground and the inner edge of his left foot is lifted off, while his right foot has been turned into the direction of his target with the heel lifted high up from the ground. For a left-handed player, the roles of his left and right foot, respectively, are reversed so that the left foot is bent over and his right heel is lifted off the ground. During the driving movement, the player's body is subjected to heavy torsion, which propagates from the foot to the top of his spinal column and which strains his ligaments and joints. It is for this reason that golfers, especially players who practice their sport frequently and who are or not so thoroughly trained and/or have already reached a certain age—this is almost the rule with golfers—frequently suffer from strain, overstretching, tenseness, dislocation and/or pain in the region of their back and their legs. A golf shoe known from DE 100 30 917 A1, provided with a twisting plate with spikes on its heel portion, is likewise not capable of preventing these effects.
Now it is the object of the present invention to open up a way how to mitigate the strain and damaging effects on players' bodies that occur as a result of the unnatural swinging movements performed when driving the golf ball.